Seamounts: Biodiversity and Fisheries
Seamountsonline: An online resource for data on the biodiversity of seamounts
Karen Stocks
University of California San DiegoAbstract
SeamountsOnline is an online resource for researchers and managers seeking data on the biodiversity of seamounts (undersea peaks in the ocean’s floor). The goal is to bring together data on species that have been sampled or observed from seamounts and make these data freely available through a searchable website (http://seamounts.sdsc.edu). The data in SeamountOnline are being compiled from many literature publications and the holdings of researchers and institutions working on seamounts. The database covers seamounts globally and includes fishes, invertebrates, and plants; users can view a list of the species that have been found on a particular seamount, a list of all the seamounts from which a particular species has been found, find out what amount of research has been done on a particular seamounts, and search a bibliography of over 1200 literature references on seamounts. SeamountsOnline is currently serving data on 2700 species (or higher taxonomic groups) from almost 200 seamounts, and is expanding continually.